Four Books

TRANSCRIPT
 

Since Pope Benedict died less than a month ago, four books (count them — one, two, three, four) have appeared pointing to massive problems in Rome, concentrating on Francis' papacy but by no means limited to that. One book is from the deceased Cdl. George Pell; another is from Cdl. Gerhard Müller; another is from Benedict's personal secretary, Abp. Georg Gänswein, and, of course, the latest bombshell by Pope Benedict himself, published posthumously.

It is Benedict's book that bears the most scrutiny and examination because of the breadth of what it covers: namely, the vast crisis in the Church — not just the Francis pontificate. This is the angle Church Militant has taken for the last 10 years; that, despite the acceleration of the crisis that has occurred under Francis, it is beyond naive to pin this on him. This pontificate is the end result (the consequence) of decades of corruption in the hierarchy. This is what Benedict's book is about.

Benedict (who, remember, was the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for a quarter of a century under Pope John Paul) outlines multiple evils and failures, including what he calls "gay clubs" in seminaries — especially seminaries here in the United States. One of those he was pointing to was right here in the archdiocese of Detroit: St. John's Seminary in Plymouth, where, for years, seminarians were shown gay porn by the rector, who went on to become a bishop in Saginaw.

The "secret," such as it was, was never that much of a secret among the clergy. Huge numbers of bishops knew all this. Heck, they were participants in it. Some of these priests went on to rape altar boys, as the bishops covered it all up. United States seminaries may have led the way due to collapsing morals in the culture — which are due to collapsing morals in the Church — but America was not the only locus of this.

Three years ago, a French author, Frédéric Martel, published his own bombshell book, In the Closet of the Vatican, in which he outed various members of the curia. His tome caused an international stir as the Vatican and multiple prelates pushed back, denying and "sort of denying" the charges in the book.

Church Militant, of course, was leading the charge in reporting all this more than a decade ago and was roundly lambasted for it by the hierarchy. All the while, they knew what we were reporting was true. When virtually no other media outlet in the Catholic world had either the journalistic experience to dig and ask the right, uncomfortable questions or had not the desire — so as not to upset that brood of vipers commonly called the hierarchy — we did.

We did multiple Vortex episodes from Rome, going back to 2010 and 2011, pointing out all this filth. We were mocked and ridiculed and called all kinds of names. But the truth is the truth, and we stuck to what we knew. Little by little, the secular media caught up, and literally dozens of articles started showing up, like this extremely lengthy one from Vanity Fair in 2013. And still, the Catholic media world ignored it all, even covering for the bishops 10 years after the fact came out about the root cause of the clerical sex abuse crisis. They even still lie to you about that. Again, despising Church Militant and lying about us every step of the way.

When the dam broke with McCarrick in 2018, all bets were off. What had been hidden, covered up and lied about for decades was now completely exposed. Yet still, the bishops continued with their lies and deflections — with deflections becoming the order of the day. The "professional Catholics," as Benedict referred to them, did as much damage control as they could. For the most part, they stopped denying what was now out in the open for all to see and hear.

They simply looked the other way, put up smoke screens and created diversions. They played the legal system like a fiddle and paid out billions of your money from their "Catholic" mutual insurance company (and others) in hush money, buying victims' silence. They fought tooth and nail to deny them justice by lobbying against so-called look-back laws that extended the time for filing civil suits.

Then, in order to shut down the cases that emerged by the thousands from states passing the look-back laws, they started filing for bankruptcy — approaching three dozen dioceses now, and counting. It wasn't because they had no money. It was to kill the lawsuits dead in their tracks and prevent any further discovery by attorneys in the cases. The bishops, it seems, weren't able to shred every document that exposed their rot.

Here in Detroit, Allen Vigneron, with the help of his attorneys at Bodman Law, just started a whole new company called Mooney Real Estate Holdings and took every single asset the archdiocese had and shifted them into that phony shell company so victims could not get to them. Church Militant broke that story and Vigneron sent out his lying communications director Ned McGrath to spin it as, "The Vatican said dioceses should do this." Yes — 107 years earlier they said so.

The seminaries are gay, the chanceries are gay-friendly and the bishops are gay and gay-friendly because they are all the product of the sexual revolution (from when they were in seminary in the 1960s and '70s). Couldn't get accepted into seminary if you weren't. Couldn't get ordained if you weren't, and certainly could not get your miter unless you were, or would, at the very least, just shut up about it.

We need about 10 (or so) more years for all these gay bishops to die or leave office. And then hope and pray that whatever's left of the Church (if anything will be) is able to reconstitute and, essentially, start from scratch. They will deserve no honors in death — only prayers. These men destroyed the Church during their tenures — robbed tens of millions of their faith — and still strut around like unattractive prom queens.

They set the stage for generations of seminarians (even down to today) to be malformed in the Faith. And if you still don't want to believe Church Militant, then read what amounts to the memoirs of a dead pope. God rest his soul. There are four books, but only one really matters.